From the beginning of time, throughout the centuries, until this present age, black women have been something else. Our beauty lies in our diversity. We have been called Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Mary, Ruth, Sapphire and La Sheneeka. Our skin may be the color of French Vanilla ice cream or it could be tones of deepest ebony.We may have flowing silk-like hair or a curly fro. There is something about a Black Woman!

We have rocked cradles, cooked collard greens, sewed, washed clothes, cleaned other people's houses and still helped build a nation. There is something about a Black Woman!

We have been depressed, repressed, distressed and oppressed, yet not only have we survived, we have thrived. There is something about a Black Woman!With full lips and swaying hips, we have left the cotton fields and moved to the corporate rooms. There is something about a Black Woman!

The poets have declared it, Luther has sung it, the writers have documented it and the angels proclaim it. There is something about a Black Woman! Aunties, mothers, sisters, sister-girls, godmothers, nieces and daughters - we make this world a brighter place. e put the "W" in wonderful and the "M" in magnificent. There is something about a Black Woman!

My brothers - don't try to understand it, it's too deep. Just love us, celebrate us and thank God everyday for the black woman in your lives. Hallelujah! There is something about a Black Woman!

The Benefits of Gratitude Gratitude is an emotion expressing appreciation for what one has—as opposed to, for example, a consumer-driven emphasis on what one wants. Gratitude is getting a great deal of attention as a facet of positive psychology: Studies show that we can deliberately cultivate gratitude, and can increase our well-being and happiness by doing so. In addition, gratefulness—and especially expression of it to others—is associated with increased energy, optimism, and empathy. (Source: Psychology Today)Why Practice Gratitude? Over the past decade, hundreds of studies have documented the social, physical, and psychological benefits of gratitude. The research suggests these benefits are available to most anyone who practices gratitude, even in the midst of adversity, such as elderly people confronting death, women with breast cancer, and people coping with a chronic muscular disease. Here are some of the top research-based reasons for practicing gratitude.

Gratitude brings us happiness: Through research by Emmons, happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, and many other scientists, practicing gratitude has proven to be one of the most reliable methods for increasing happiness and life satisfaction; it also boosts feelings of optimism, joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, and other positive emotions.

On the flip side, gratitude also reduces anxiety and depression.

Gratitude is good for our bodies: Studies by Emmons and his colleague Michael McCullough suggest gratitude strengthens the immune system, lowers blood pressure, reduces symptoms of illness, and makes us less bothered by aches and pains. It also encourages us to exercise more and take better care of our health.

Grateful people sleep better: They get more hours of sleep each night, spend less time awake before falling asleep, and feel more refreshed upon awakening. If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep.

Gratitude makes us more resilient: It has been found to help people recover from traumatic events, including Vietnam War veterans with PTSD.

Gratitude strengthens relationships: It makes us feel closer and more committed to friends and romantic partners. When partners feel and express gratitude for each other, they each become more satisfied with their relationship. Gratitude may also encourage a more equitable division of labor between partners.

Gratitude promotes forgiveness—even between ex-spouses after a divorce.

Gratitude makes us “pay it forward”: Grateful people are more helpful, altruistic, and compassionate.

Gratitude is good for kids: When 10-19 year olds practice gratitude, they report greater life satisfaction and more positive emotion, and they feel more connected to their community.

Gratitude is good for schools: Studies suggest it makes students feel better about their school; it also makes teachers feel more satisfied and accomplished, and less emotionally exhausted, possibly reducing teacher burnout.

]]>Sat, 02 Aug 2014 06:19:31 GMThttp://hypsis.weebly.com/misc-past-blogs/narcissistic-mothersClinical psychologist Joseph Burgo discusses the behavior of narcissistic mothers, using clips from two popular films: Terms of Endearment (1983) and The Fighter (2010).

Inspired by popular posts about narcissistic mothers and vindictive narcissists from his website, After Psychotherapy, Dr. Burgo's new eBook -- a psychological novella based on the classic Cinderella saga -- is now available on Amazon and can be accessed by clicking on the link blow:

Domestication During our early life we began making agreements. Our parents rewarded us when we did what they wanted and they punished us when we didn’t. We also learned behaviors and habits in school, church, and from other adults and children on the playground. The tools of reward and punishment were often emotional and sometimes physical. The impact of other people’s opinions and reactions to us became a very strong force in the habits we created. In this process we created agreements in our mind of who we should be, what we shouldn’t be, who we were, and who we were not. Over time we learned to live our life based on the agreements in our own mind. We learned to live according to the agreements that came from the opinion of others. In this process of domestication it turns out that the choices we make and the life we live is more driven by the opinions we learned from others than one we would choose on our own. (http://www.toltecspirit.com)Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz (born 1952), better known as Don Miguel Ruiz, is a Mexican author of Toltec spiritualist and neoshamanistic texts. Though some of his teachings seem similar to New Age, it is not. It focuses on the Ancient Toltec teachings that are used to achieve happiness, peace, and love within one's life by achieving the wisdom to do so. Listed as one of The Watkins 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in 2014. His current most famous and influential work, The Four Agreements, was published in 1997 and has sold around 5.2 million copies in the U.S. and has been translated into 38 languages. It was featured on the Oprah television show, and advocates personal freedom from beliefs and agreements that we have made with ourselves and others that are creating limitation and unhappiness in our lives. Ultimately, it is about finding one's own integrity, self-love, and peace within this reality. The Four Agreements go very deep, but plainly stated, they are:

]]>Sat, 26 Jul 2014 04:05:29 GMThttp://hypsis.weebly.com/misc-past-blogs/around-the-world-in-360-degrees600 Days Around the World with a GoPro on a stick! In the most epic selfie ever!

The ultimate selfie compilation documented like never before in a 360° Degree rotation in every major site and exotic place in over 36+ countries.

Alex Chacon is on a Modern Motorcycle Diaries driving his motorcycle over 200,000+ Km crossing 75+ borders around the world to the most remote and undiscovered places on earth on this charitable expedition.

History of Hula Hooping From 500 BCE to the 21st CenturyNo one knows for sure when or where a circle of willow, rattan, grapevines or stiff grasses became a form of exercise. We do know that Egyptian children played with hoops made out of dried grapevines, rolling them with sticks or whirling them around their waist. The ancient Greeks used hoops to exercise. A vase in the Louvre [dated 500-490 BCE] shows Ganymede rolling a hoop. However, there is no evidence that hooping was part of the early Olympics.Great Britain 14th Century Hoops were popular in Great Britain in the 14th century as a form of recreation and religious ceremonies. Medical records from the era record doctors treating dislocated backs and heart attacks that were attributed to hooping.

The term “hula hoop” came from British sailors who had seen hula dancing in the Hawaiian Islands and thought it looked similar to the movements of hooping back home. Hooping was again popular in England in the 1800 where children would roll hoops with a stick or spin the hoop around their waist.

Native American Hoop Dance Hoop dancing is a form of storytelling for Native American Indians dating back to the 1400s. With no beginning or end, it symbolizes the never-ending circle of life. Dancers used dozens of small hoops, typically made of reeds, as symbolic representations of animals such as eagles, snakes, butterflies or coyotes. Their hoop dance uses very rapid movements and the off-body use of hoops to construct symbolic forms around their bodies. Tony White Cloud ushered in modern Native American hoop dancing in the 1930s when he began using multiple hoops to perform stylized dances to weave stories of how life is connected with changes and transitions. There is an annual Native American Hoop Dance competition at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.Hula HoopCraze 1950s The hula hoop craze of the late 50’s can be traced to Australia, where children twirled hoops made out of bamboo. When the production of bamboo hoops could not meet the demand, Toltoys was engaged to make hoops out of plastic and sold 400,000 hoops in 1957.

Hula Hoops from the 50's were small colorful plastic tubes made primarily for children to play and exercise. Today, hula hooping has come full circle. Children still love them and adults have begun using stronger, larger, heavier hoops for fitness and fun. ... continue reading>> http://www.hulahooping.com/history.html

Walls fifth-grader breaks hula hoop record On May 21, what were you doing for 381 consecutive minutes? After consuming a muffin and some juice for breakfast, Walls Elementary School fifth-grader Sherrita Paige began the process of breaking a record. Her means of doing so included a three-pound, weighted sports hoop. The multi-colored device spun around the 13-year-old's waist for six hours and 21 minutes, a feat recognized by Project Fit America as a "Kong Elite" National Record. The previous mark was set just one week earlier by Amory Middle School's Chelsea Harlow, who, at the time, logged a time of five hours, 54 minutes and 58 seconds. "I'm very proud of her," said Walls Elementary principal Rebecca Kelley, "and I want to keep encouraging her because she's a great athlete. She's going to be good at track, basketball -- whatever she participates in -- if she'll just keep her head on straight." ... continue reading>>commercialappeal.com/news/local-news/hula-hoopla

Big hopes, bright dreams and the lures of fame and success, with seven women's personal and professional lives hanging precariously in the balance. Making it in the Big City has never been easy, and at this establishment, there's just as much drama behind the scenes as there is in the spotlight throughout this ambitious, yet awkwardly-executed stage play. Set in modern-day Detroit, Soul Kittens Cabaret focuses on a club that is heavy on talent and sex appeal, but is struggling business-wise, thanks to back-door deals, shady characters and shaky practices that impact an eager newbie (Sara-Allison Duke), the flamboyant club owner (Joe "Miss Sophia" Taylor) and its veteran performers (Silena Murrell, Crystale Wilson, Monifah Carter, Tondy Gallant, Erica Smith and Nicci Gilbert). Being human, all of them are motivated by a Good Conscience and Bad Conscience, so the women, like many in real life, alternate from being encouraging girlfriends one minute and acid-tongued, back-stabbing vipers in the next. The men (Terrell Carter, Donald Gray, Dave Tolliver, Blu Mitchell and Taylor) also have their own demons to slay, so coincidentally, the performers at the Soul Kitten Cabaret become caught up in those battles as well. Without giving too much away, Brandy (Duke) is a talented, yet naïve dancer who finds her way to the Detroit club, where she meets immediate resistance from the ladies since she's there to replace one of them. Along the way, she falls in love, learns how unglamorous things really are for Soul Kittens and gets exposed to seedy elements like drug use, extortion and exploitation, which sends them all on a collision course to disaster until they find a way to unite, forgive and move forward. ... continue reading review>> http://www.soultracks.com/dvd-reviews-soul-kttens

A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 Americandrama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It focuses on a woman whose unusual behavior leads her husband to commit her for psychiatric treatment and the effect this has on their family. It received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress and Best Director. In 1990, A Woman Under the Influence was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", one of the first fifty films to be so honored.

Plot Los Angeles housewife and mother Mabel loves her construction worker husband Nick and desperately wants to please him, but the strange mannerisms and increasingly odd behavior she displays while in the company of others has him concerned. Convinced she has become a threat to herself and others, he reluctantly commits her to an institution, where she undergoes treatment for six months. Left alone with his three children, Nick proves to be neither wiser nor better than his wife in the way he relates to and interacts with them or accepts the role society expects him to play. After six months Mabel returns home but she is not prepared to do so emotionally or mentally, and neither is her husband prepared correctly for her return. At first Nick invites a large group of people to the house for a party to celebrate his wife's return, but realizing at the last minute that this is foolish, he sends most of them home. Mabel then returns with mostly only close family, including her parents, Nick's parents, and their three children to greet her but even this is overwhelming and the evening denigrates into yet another emotionally and psychologically devastating event. After much drama, including a moment when Mabel cuts herself during a psychotic episode, the rest of the family leaves and the husband and wife are left alone to put their children to sleep. The youngsters profess their love for their mother as she tucks them in and then Nick and Mabel themselves ready their bed for a night to be alone as the film ends without real resolution. >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Under_the_Influence

Gattaca is a 1997 American science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin appearing in supporting roles. The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic manipulation to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. The film centers on Vincent Freeman, played by Hawke, who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome genetic discrimination to realize his dream of traveling into space. The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes. The film's title is based on the first letters of guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA. It was a 1997 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. The show is set in the Milky Waygalaxy, roughly during the 2260s. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), first officer and science officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:﻿Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.﻿ The series was produced 1966–67 by Desilu Productions, and by Paramount Television 1968–69. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966 to June 3, 1969. Although this television series had the title of Star Trek, it later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (Star Trek: TOS or TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. Star Trek's Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and the network canceled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. Nevertheless, the show had a major influence on popular culture and it became a cult classic in broadcast syndication during the 1970s. The show eventually spawned a franchise, consisting of five additional television series, 12 theatrical films, numerous books, games, toys, and is now considered one of the most popular science fiction television shows of all time. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series